需 → 艮
Hexagram 5: Waiting → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 需于郊。利用恆。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Waiting in the meadow. It furthers one to abide in what endures. No blame.
Line 2
九二 需于沙。小有言。終吉。
Nine in the second place means: Waiting on the sand. There is some gossip. The end brings good fortune.
Line 5
九五 需于酒食。貞吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Waiting at meat and drink. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 6
上六 入于穴。有不速之客三人來。敬之終吉。
Six at the top means: One falls into the pit. Three uninvited guests arrive. Honor them, and in the end there will be good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
黍稷苗稻，垂秀方造。中旱不雨，傷風枯槁。
Millet, grain, rice seedlings, and paddy; grain-heads form and begin to swell. Mid-season drought with no rain; blighted by wind, they wither and dry.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds above heaven solidify into the doubled mountain of Keeping Still. Millet, grain, rice, and paddy hang heavy with ripening ears, just approaching fullness — when a midsummer drought strikes. No rain falls; the crops are scorched by hot wind and wither to husks. The verse captures agriculture's cruelest timing: destruction arriving at the very moment of near-completion. All the patient growing that Waiting's clouds promised is undone in the final stretch. From Waiting to Keeping Still, the double mountain stops everything: growth halts, movement ceases, and what was almost ripe is frozen in permanent incompletion. Stillness here is not serenity but the paralysis of drought — nature refusing to complete its own cycle.
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